BASEBALL

BASEBALL; Hernandez at the Helm as Yankees Steady the Ship

By BUSTER OLNEY

Published: August 29, 1998

This past week seemed like one long day, Chuck Knoblauch said last night, after the Yankees thrashed the Seattle Mariners, 10-3. One very long day.

The night games lasted forever in Texas and then the Yankees found themselves waiting on a tarmac for an hour Monday after an overnight flight. Then they played a night game against Anaheim and another and then a day-night doubleheader and then extra innings that lingered past midnight. All of the games were tense and exhausting, all of the games were frustrating and exhilarating and draining.

So last night's game at Yankee Stadium was a relative nap in the middle of this homestand, a dreamy rout. The Yankees jumped on Seattle's Paul Spoljaric for five runs in the first inning and added a bunch more, as Orlando Hernandez (9-4) pitched seven strong innings. Knoblauch had four hits.

Cruise control, after seven long days of bumper to bumper.

Paul O'Neill got the night off, and so did Tino Martinez. Derek Jeter was replaced after four innings, and moments after reliever Mike Buddie closed out the Mariners in the ninth, Jeter burst out of the side door near Manager Joe Torre's office and was on his way. The Yankees have not played many blowouts recently, since parting ways with the Kansas City Royals on Aug. 18.

''Games like this are always nice,'' O'Neill said. ''It's been a grueling week.''

Said Torre, ''This felt pretty good.''

The Yankees drifted off their 120-victory course this week after their rudder -- the starting pitching -- suffered a few dents. But they have won three consecutive games, are on pace to win 118 and seem to have navigated their way through the season's first squall. And, for the first time in a week, they got a strong outing from a starter.

As he has several times this season, Hernandez re-established equilibrium, allowing just three hits and two runs over seven innings, striking out eight and walking two. In his previous outing, against the Rangers in Texas last weekend, Hernandez struggled to find a proper arm position on the unusually rounded mound at The Ball Park in Arlington and his control was terrible. But he was back on familiar ground last night, his command superb.

Pitching coaches generally are pleased if their students throw first-pitch strikes to two-thirds of opposing hitters; Hernandez threw first-pitch strikes to the first eight Seattle batters last night and 11 of the first 12. ''I was able to pitch ahead the whole night,'' Hernandez said through an interpreter.

By getting ahead in the count, Hernandez then forced the Mariners to swing defensively at his sidearm slider and curveball and variety of off-speed stuff. He struck out Alex Rodriguez, Ken Griffey Jr. and David Segui in the first inning and got Segui again in the third.

After Rodriguez swung through a fastball to strike out in the fifth, he slammed his bat against the plate, in utter disgust.

Run support was not a problem: The Yankees beat on Seattle as Evander Holyfield might a sparring partner.

Spoljaric could have used some protective gear, as hard as he was hit. Knoblauch -- who hit line drives to right, left and over shortstop in perhaps his most consistent game of the season's second half -- drove Spoljaric's second pitch of the game into the right-field corner, scampered around first base, challenged the arm of Raul Ibanez and slid safely into second with a double.

After Tim Raines walked and Bernie Williams singled through the middle, Chili Davis crushed a double between the right and center fielders and just like that, the Yankees led by 3-0 and everything seemed back to 1998 standards.

But there was more: Jorge Posada pulled a double down the third-base line and into the left-field corner, Davis scoring. If there was any apprehension or worry remaining from the 2-3 Anaheim series, it was gone, like a migraine headache. The crowd of 47,785 jeered Stan Williams, the Seattle pitching coach, as he went to and from the mound, in a mission to calm Spoljaric.

Chad Curtis walked, and the first baseman Segui and the catcher John Marzano visited Spoljaric. Luis Sojo pulled a ground single through the left side, scoring Posada, and Rodriguez, the shortstop, and Marzano talked to Spoljaric, who was quickly running out of counseling options.

The Yankees' five-run first finally ended on Spoljaric's 43d pitch of the inning, after five hits and seven base runners. O'Neill and Martinez could relax on the bench, and soon the one long day that Knoblauch spoke about drew to a close.

Thirty days left in the regular season, with perhaps more tension-filled days to come in October. The time for rest is now.

INSIDE PITCH

The Yankees are three victories from reaching 100, a milestone the 1906 Chicago Cubs and the 1954 Cleveland Indians reached on Sept. 9, the earliest in the 20th century, according to the Elias Sports Bureau. . . . DEREK JETER was batting .331 and was third in the American League hitting race as the game began, and BERNIE WILLIAMS was leading, at .340. Manager JOE TORRE said he would pick Williams as the likely winner because he has the advantage of being a switch-hitter. But Torre added, ''Anything that Jeter does would never surprise me.'' . . . TINO MARTINEZ already has 104 runs batted in, PAUL O'NEILL 99, and both SCOTT BROSIUS (82) and Williams (77) are closing in on 100. . . . Brosius can become a free agent after this season, and it appears that the Yankees and the third baseman may be finished negotiating until after the post-season.

Photos: Scott Brosius being greeted by Luis Sojo after his two-run homer against the Mariners at the Stadium last night landed in the third deck and gave the Yankees a 7-1 lead. (G. Paul Burnett/The New York Times)(pg. C1); Chili Davis hitting a two-run double, which was part of a five-run first inning at the Stadium last night and the start of the Yankees' rout. (G. Paul Burnett/The New York Times)(pg. C3)